


Ways to Cope with a Shattered Heart

by JustALilBookworm



Series: When In the Course of Human Events [1]
Category: Archie Comics, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, F/M, I don't like making him suffer, Jughead Jones Needs a Hug, but I don't have a choice at the moment, can these two just get their shit together already?, it's exhausting, mentions of b/a, slightly canon compliant, undealt with emotional issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:34:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29702025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustALilBookworm/pseuds/JustALilBookworm
Summary: The night before his first book is set to release, Jug is doing the only thing he can do - getting completely wasted.It's at this exact moment he takes a look back at who he used to be, and does something he's been meaning to for years.He's going to call Betty Cooper.i.e. Your humble author tries to imagine what's going on in Jug's brain that night he left Betty a voicemail.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Series: When In the Course of Human Events [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2182815
Kudos: 9





	Ways to Cope with a Shattered Heart

**Author's Note:**

> "Ancient History" - Set It Off
> 
> I was unsure about writing anything canon, but once I got this idea it wouldn't leave me alone, so here we are.
> 
> Side note: I haven't watched the 5th season, and it's entirely possible I never will. So I just decided to do it myself and make the show good for a change. Anybody who wants to join me on this quest is more than welcome. Because probably nothing that I write in this series to going to be like canon at all.

He downed his third shot of tequila of the night. Sitting alone in his room in his apartment.

The burning in his throat as it went down and the growing fog in his brain was **far** easier to deal with than his everyday numbness. He hadn’t really felt anything in a long time. Not joy, sadness, or the anger he spent so long stewing in, convinced he would never be able let go of. He couldn’t even care that in 17 ½ hours, he would be at his own book release party with good people he came to tolerate since moving to New York after school. Christ, he would be there with Jess.

_Your girlfriend._

_Remember her, Jug?_

She’s almost the exact opposite of _her_ in every way, and that’s what he wanted. He promised himself if he were to ever date again, it wouldn’t be with someone like _her_. He wanted her out of his life, and if there was a way he could forget her permanently, you bet your ass he’d give his left arm for it.

Sure they all departed town quietly and without drama, but after having years alone to think about everything that happened those 4 years, Jughead Jones was no longer the forgiving type. Had he ever really been? It all depended on who it was and what happened, but when you’re abandoned by everybody in your life, you stop caring. You’re angry for a while, but that gets to be so exhausting and you’re too stubborn to let it go. Then all there’s left to do is give up.

When it came to _her_ though, he could forgive her anything. Lord did he hate himself for it. He wanted more than anything to hate her, he figured in that way he could get back the piece of him he let her have and hasn’t been successful in reclaiming. He hasn’t been successful in much for a long time. Arguably ever.

_Mary, mother of God – couldn’t Joan have hit him just a little bit harder?_

Life got hard. Too much was going wrong and one day he decided it was pointless trying to go against the universe. So he picked up a bottle and managed to get himself hooked. It was his own fault for believing he could be anybody other than what he always knew he would be, even when he was young. People in his family were just destined for failure and misery.

_Bravo, wiseass. How did it take you this long to figure that one out?_

He’s been doing it for years now. At this rate, his liver’s gonna be history by the time he’s 30. On the plus side, he discovered he was really good at pretending to sober when he was the exact opposite.

He lifted his head, which had been hanging and facing his wood floor, and looked around the room with his alcohol-impaired vision.

His eyes turned to the phone on his nightstand, maybe it was his hazed, drunken mind talking, but he couldn’t help but wonder…

What if he called her right now?

Would she pickup?

Would she listen or hang-up immediately after telling him to fuck off?

He couldn’t say this was the first time he thought about calling her. For years he considered it, he had dozens of conversations in his head, telling himself that he would call for real and repeat what he thought up. What he needed to tell her.

He got close a few times, but never took the plunge because he was a goddamn coward and couldn’t stand the idea of hearing her cry on the other end on the line. That would prove to be counter to his goal and he’d end up apologizing profusely again and again.

He reached towards the nightstand but didn’t grab the phone. He grabbed the nob on the drawer and pulled it open, looking for something. Hidden beneath a pack of cigarettes, a notebook and pen, a shot glass, a flask, and an old beat-up copy of Agatha Christie’s “The Murder of Rodger Ackroyd”, was something he vowed to get rid of ceremoniously on numerous occasions but never did.

They were at the park on a spring afternoon, he had his arms around her and was holding her from behind while pressing a kiss to her temple. She was holding the camera out in front of her and beaming up at it.

In the picture, he was still just a gangly looking kid who wore a beanie with the crown shaped edge and pins that covered his unruly dark locks. He still wore his S t-shirts, jeans, flannels, and combat boots which he had since all but abandoned, save the boots and flannel. Her, on the other hand, well she was even more beautiful than he remembered. She was wearing a pair of blush-pink jeans, a black short sleeve shirt with white polka dots, and flipflops. Her blonde hair was left down that day and she had a wide smile from when she laughed as the wind blew it in her face.

His eyes turned up from the picture in his hands toward his closet. He set the picture down next to him on his bed and took a swig from the tequila bottle and set it down on his nightstand before he stood up and pulled open the closet door.

It took him a moment to find what he was looking for since he could barely keep his balance standing up, let alone recognize all the random crap in his closet. But he did find it, it was unmistakable from everything else he had since it was a white box. If anybody ever asked, he never told them what he kept in this box, he always said it was just junk notes and rough drafts for his stories since that was easiest lie to remember.

“Shit” he mumbled, choosing to sit on the floor where he was instead of picking the box up. He opened the lid and looked at everything he hid away in that box for half a decade. He meant to destroy that box a long time ago when he first started drinking and was at a point before he lost touch with his emotions and was just so angry all the time.

Full disclosure, when he said “destroy” he meant setting it on fire. All of it. Everything that remined him of her. He got close, and he did burn somethings, but he couldn’t burn others. For whatever reason instead of throwing the whole thing into the flames like he planned, he just grabbed things he could send to hell without a care and put the lid back on the box and held it.

_And did that help, Jones? Did that make it any easier?_

There was a beginning to a story he started years ago with a character based off her that she was said was too generous to her abilities and overall self. He told her she was inherently wrong on both accounts. After everything that happened between them, he put it in the box along with everything else, knowing it was never going to be finished.

There were more pictures of the two of them over the three years they were together and moments from their childhood. He remembered the day they first met in grade school, how she never faltered to defend him from Reggie Mantle and Chuck Clayton, and how she shared her snacks and lunches when he had nothing. He remembered every moment in all their simplistic beauty. When he returned from juvie after a few months in the 3rd grade, she didn’t think of him any differently and told him they were wrong to send him away.

But then they went to middle school, and while he had known she had a crush on the Andrew’s boy since the 1st grade, now she would outright say she was in love with him. Jug knew Archie was oblivious to that, and her for that matter, but he wasn’t going to hurt Betty – his best friend – by telling her. He decided it was best to leave it alone.

In 7th grade his mom left him, and Jug pulled away from everyone that was once in his life. He didn’t want to be hurt again, and when you’re 13 that means staying away from all potential threats. He let things fizzle in his friendships with Archie Andrews and Betty Cooper, figuring it was bound to happen anyway.

It stayed that way for slightly over 2 years, he would see them every now and again because wherever Archie was, Betty was right there with him to tell him how “great” (narrator said sarcastically) he was doing. She wasn’t just his friend, she became his mother, his nurse, his personal cheerleader, his chef, essentially his trophy wife, and his teacher. But still she failed to see it because she was head over heels for the boy, and always said she was helping him.

Jug hated that Betty was too kind to see all the ways Archie was taking advantage of her, not that he meant to take advantage of her she was just always around and more than willing to help. But again, he wasn’t going to bring anything up because he knew it wouldn’t help matters, and he needed to let her figure these things out on her own. And sophomore year of high school it happened, he was there when Archie came to Pops looking for Betty, and he could only deduce what had transpired to make Betty runaway from Archibald Andrews.

He spent years watching the blonde girl fawn over the red-haired boy, and he hated every moment of it. He was there the day Archie proposed to Betty on the front step of her house in the 2nd grade. He was there when Archie told them he was going to try out for football in the 6th grade and Betty instantly decided – out of the blue – that she wanted to try out for cheerleading. He was there when Archie started kissing and dating girls left right and center, and Betty would always be devastated about it because she wasn’t one of them.

On Valentine’s Day, when he knew for damn sure Archie didn’t get her anything, he used to give her a small package of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups that he knew she loved. It took him weeks to scrape up the money to buy them, and he never told her who they were from or that he even did that for her. He let her think they were from Archie, because above all else he just wanted to see her smile. To this very day, she probably still thinks they were from Archie.

He saw it all in spades, and he was always the one to compensate for her sadness, even when things got strange at the end of middle school and the beginning of high school. He made sure the smile on her face was a real as could be whenever he had the chance, even if it was from a distance. Then he finally got a chance to call her his, and she ripped it to shreds, along with the rest of him. He thought it was only fair that he could set them ablaze.

He tossed the pictures off to the side; he couldn’t bear to look at them anymore and go down memory lane like that.

_You goddamn fool, Jughead Jones. This is what you get for trying to forsake the paths you were all set on since birth. She was never yours to keep, didn’t you know that?_

Frustrated, he pushed the box over on its side and all its remaining contents spilled out onto the floor with it. He rubbed his face with his hands, and somehow managed to get to his feet. He made his way to his bed and collapsed on it, laying there for second, unsure what to do now. He maneuvered himself onto his back and stayed still looking at the ceiling for another second, before he made a decision.

_A decision made drunk; don’t those always go just swimmingly._

He was sitting all the way up now, and his phone was in his hands. He had his contact list open to her contact, and his thumb hovered her number for a moment. Perhaps some type of force was trying to stop him from what he was about to do, but his mind was made up.

It was time to get some things off his chest.

He pressed on her number, held the phone to his ear, and listened as it rang. And continued to ring for what felt like hours.

“Your call has been forwarded to an automated voice messaging system. 838-579-2249 is not available. Please leave a message after the tone” the robotic answering machine said.

_*beep*_

“Hey…it’s me” he started in a quiet voice.

“I just wanted to say that…uh…I miss you. I ran across one of our old pictures today, and I almost tried to call you so many times before now. But, um…obviously I didn’t, heh. After all this time I still have so many questions, and I doubt I have time to ask them. So I’m just gonna leave you this voicemail. Do you ever wonder about me the way I wonder about you? I wonder if you’re alright, cause I don’t think any of us were alright the last time we spoke. But it’s not my place anymore, so I can’t ask.

“Do you ever think about what happened, and wonder where we would be if it didn’t? I do, and that probably makes me sound insane because I should just let you go, right? I should just drop everything I knew about you and pretend that we never even happened? Well I can’t. I can’t pretend that it never even happened. I always saw the best in you. So much goodness and positivity even though you never failed to drag me back down.

“And this isn’t coming out the way I wanted it to, no matter how many times I practiced in my head. But I need to know, did you ever _actually_ care about me? Or was it just a game? Like, you befriended me and then it really became legit and things went so wrong in our lives and then you got stuck with me. And then you just decided you didn’t need me anymore and you found a reason to hate me so you could shut me out. Then I wouldn’t be trying to call you, right? That’s what it was, wasn’t it? Because I meant _nothing_ to you.

“And if that’s not true, then prove to me it’s not true. Because something like what we had doesn’t just go up in flames after somebody’s mistake. You’re supposed to grow, but you didn’t want to, and you never let me. And you’re afraid. You’re afraid to let people see that _you_ were the bad one, it wasn’t just me. But it’s okay, they’ll all know. We just have to wait and see.

“You know after a month apart I found myself think of you as my past, and I never wanted that. Cause I wanted us to make it. I wanted our future, but you didn’t want that anymore. I guess I understand and…you can call me back if you want. If there’s anything you want to say to me. You should see the number in your missed call log. Bye”

He hung up the phone and heaved a heavy sigh, letting himself fall back onto his bed once more. He was glad he wouldn’t have to deal with the memories of this night tomorrow or ever, he wouldn’t remember calling her at all and the hangover will be bad enough as it is. But such is life when you need a vice, and you live to forget because you have nothing else worth living for.

**Author's Note:**

> I may have given up watching the show some time ago, but I wanted to do this for my fellow Buggies. It's sad when fan-fic writers can write the show better than those who are being paid to do so. And believe me, I don't mean that in just a "you ruined my ship" type way, my problems with it go deeper then that, and so do a lot of others. We'll talk about that another time, but feel free to unload on me if you need to.
> 
> The words Jug is speaking during his voicemail is actually heavily based on a beautiful poem called "the voicemail" by Skye Love. She has a bunch of her poems up on YouTube all narrated by her, and after listening to that one I got inspired to write this. I do highly recommend listening to her poetry if that's your thing.


End file.
